Promoting Equality and Access in Higher Education: A Comparative Study of State Sponsored Preferential Policies in Great Britain, India and South Africa

Recent U.S. court decisions striking down affirmative action policies in college admissions have caused universities to seek diversity programs that can hold up to public and Jesa1 scrutiny while maintaining diversity on campus. The purpose of this thesis is to study the preference programs of other countries and determine if successful elements could be duplicated here in the United States. Specifically, the study looks at whether countries who use equality of opportunity programs (which focus on training initiatives) are more successful in increasing enrollment and hiring numbers of minorities than equality of outcome measures (which focus on quotas). The study also asked the larger theoretical question of whether preference programs are successful in distributing valuable higher education resources to minorities

Promoting Equality and Access in Higher Education: A Comparative Study of State Sponsored Preferential Policies in Great Britain, India and South Africa

Recent U.S. court decisions striking down affirmative action policies in college admissions have caused universities to seek diversity programs that can hold up to public and Jesa1 scrutiny while maintaining diversity on campus. The purpose of this thesis is to study the preference programs of other countries and determine if successful elements could be duplicated here in the United States. Specifically, the study looks at whether countries who use equality of opportunity programs (which focus on training initiatives) are more successful in increasing enrollment and hiring numbers of minorities than equality of outcome measures (which focus on quotas). The study also asked the larger theoretical question of whether preference programs are successful in distributing valuable higher education resources to minorities

Determination of mean camber surfaces for wings having uniform chordwise loading and arbitrary spanwise loading in subsonic flow

The field of a uniformly loaded wing in subsonic flow is discussed in terms of the acceleration potential. It is shown that, for the design of such wings, the slope of the mean camber surface at any point can be determined by a line integration around the wing boundary. By an additional line integration around the wing boundary, this method is extended to include the case where the local section lift coefficient varies with spanwise location (the chordwise loading at every section still remaining uniform). For the uniformly loaded wing of polygonal plan form, the integrations necessary to determine the local slope of the surface and the further integration of the slopes to determine the ordinate can be done analytically. An outline of these integrations and the resulting formulas are included. Calculated results are given for a sweptback wing with uniform chordwise loading and a highly tapered spanwise loading, a uniformly loaded delta wing, a uniformly loaded sweptback wing, and the same sweptback wing with uniform chordwise loading but elliptical span load distribution

Assessment of Keratitis Damage in an Age Dependent Mouse Model Using Analytical Software

Background: Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) is a grampositive bacterium that is responsible for diseases such as, otitis media, conjunctivitis, bacterial keratitis, pneumonia, and meningitis. Bacterial keratitis is one of the most common after-effects of trauma to the eye. Some reports have shown the S. pneumoniae spreads through enzymes that are produced to digest the cornea, which in turn can causes blindness. There is a need for more improved measures that can reverse the detrimental effects of the bacteria. The long-term goal of this research is to better understand the complete role of S. pneumoniae and its components in bacterial keratitis to develop next generation therapies to prevent blindness. The purpose of this study is to develop alternative measures to evaluate damage associated with keratitis infection by use of computer applications. Methods: This study analyzed images of the established Keratitis pneumococcal mouse model. The eye images of mice 7-8-week-old and 9-month-old were collected. Additional images were taken on post-infection days one, three, five, and nine, revealing the progression of the infection. Results: The ImageJ Application provided more in depth review to determine the detrimental effects of S. pneumoniae. Through the software, a “Color Threshold” was created on every image to emphasize the area of damage caused by the bacteria. A scatter plot of every image created a map of the particles, and the diameter created a scale demonstrating the impact of keratitis. Data revealed that the most significant increase in infection occurs between Day 1 and 3 post-infection. Conclusions: The study has created a computer model to establish a baseline for the infection process of S. pneumoniae in the traditional mouse model. ImageJ has proven to be a useful tool to analyze the impact of disease on the murine model. Results from this study also provide evidence of the importance of early intervention in ocular disease

Construct validity of a continuous metabolic syndrome score in children

Objective: The primary purpose of this study was to examine the construct validity of a continuous metabolic syndrome score (cMetS) in children. The secondary purpose was to identify a cutpoint value(s) for an adverse cMetS based on receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Methods: 378 children aged 7 to 9 years were assessed for the metabolic syndrome which was determined by age-modified cutpoints. High-density-lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, the homeostasis assessment model of insulin resistance, mean arterial pressure, and waist circumference were used to create a cMetS for each subject. Results: About half of the subjects did not possess any risk factors while about 5% possessed the metabolic syndrome. There was a graded relationship between the cMetS and the number of adverse risk factors. The cMetS was lowest in the group with no adverse risk factors (-1.59 ± 1.76) and highest in those possessing the metabolic syndrome (≥3 risk factors) (7.05 ± 2.73). The cutoff level yielding the maximal sensitivity and specificity for predicting the presence of the metabolic syndrome was a cMetS of 3.72 (sensitivity = 100%, specificity = 93.9%, and the area of the curve = 0.978 (0.957-0.990, 95% confidence intervals). Conclusion: The results demonstrate the construct validity for the cMetS in children. Since there are several drawbacks to identifying a single cut-point value for the cMetS based on this sample, we urge researchers to use the approach herein to validate and create a cMetS that is specific to their study population